Energy

Fund manager and former corporate buyout specialist Travis Bradford argues—on the basis of standard business and economic forecasting models—that over the next two decades solar energy will increasingly become the best and cheapest choice for most electricity and energy applications. In this BIT, Bradford provides the basic facts about solar energy and describes a variety of economic and political incentives that would encourage its use.

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe. An invisible, tasteless, colorless gas, it can be converted to nonpolluting, zero-emission, renewable energy. In this BIT, Peter Hoffmann makes the case for hydrogen as the cornerstone of a new energy economy, offering a history of the technology from the nineteenth century to the present and introducing the concept of “hydricity.”

Energy innovation offers us our best chance to solve the three urgent and interrelated problems of climate change, worldwide insecurity over energy supplies, and rapidly growing energy demand. But if we are to achieve a timely transition to reliable, low-cost, low-carbon energy, the U.S. energy innovation system must be radically overhauled. This BIT describes innovation that enables low-carbon technologies to supplant natural gas and other fossil fuels for power generation.

America is addicted to fossil fuels, and the environmental and geopolitical costs are mounting. A federal program—on the scale of the Manhattan Project or the Apollo Program— to stimulate innovation in energy policy seems essential. In this BIT, Charles Weiss and William Bonvillian describe a new framework for stimulating innovation through policy and legislation and offer a roadmap for the implementation of new technologies.